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Senators Oppose Policy on US Attorneys    [

    White House Is Reported to Be Linked to a Dismissal
    By David Johnston
    The New York Times

    Friday 16 February 2007

    Washington - A United States attorney in Arkansas who was dismissed from his job last year by the Justice Department was ousted after Harriet E. Miers, the former White House counsel, intervened on behalf of the man who replaced him, according to Congressional aides briefed on the matter.

    Ms. Miers, the aides said, phoned an aide to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales suggesting the appointment of J. Timothy Griffin, a former military and civilian prosecutor who was a political director for the Republican National Committee and a deputy to Karl Rove, the White House political adviser.

    Later, the incumbent United States attorney, H. E. Cummins III, was removed without explanation and replaced on an interim basis by Mr. Griffin. Officials at the White House and Justice Department declined to comment on Ms. Miers's role in the matter.

    Paul J. McNulty, the deputy attorney general, said at a hearing last week that Mr. Cummins had done nothing wrong but was removed to make room for Mr. Griffin. It was not known at the time Mr. McNulty testified that Ms. Miers had intervened on Mr. Griffin's behalf.

    Her involvement was disclosed on Wednesday by Justice Department officials led by Mr. McNulty, who held a closed-door briefing for senators on the Judiciary Committee after Democrats criticized the dismissals of 7 to 10 United States attorneys as politically motivated.

    Ms. Miers, whose resignation as White House counsel was effective Jan. 31, could not be reached for comment Thursday.

    At the briefing, Justice Department officials denied that the White House had been involved in any of the other dismissals, suggesting that the department had acted on its own after advising the White House of its intention to remove incumbents.

    Democrats have said the removals represented an effort to make room for rising political favorites of the Bush administration and to be rid of independent-minded prosecutors, all of whom had been appointed by President Bush.

    Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said that he was not satisfied by the Justice Department's explanations at the briefing.

    "Yesterday's briefing by the deputy attorney general did little to alleviate our concerns that politics was involved and, in fact, raised those concerns," Mr. Schumer said. "Some may have been fired for political reasons because they may have not done what Justice Department wanted them to do."

    Justice Department officials have said that because United States attorneys are presidential appointees they may be replaced at any time without a specific reason, although they have said that none were removed for pursuing politically sensitive cases.

    Another United States attorney asked to resign was Carol C. Lam of San Diego, who departed on Thursday at the request of the Justice Department. Two days earlier, Ms. Lam announced two indictments, including one against a former high-ranking Central Intelligence Agency official, in a corruption inquiry that began with last year's guilty plea by a former Republican representative, Randy Cunningham, who was sentenced to more than eight years in prison.

    Karen P. Hewitt, an assistant in Ms. Lam's office, was named Thursday to serve as the interim United States attorney in the Southern District, while Scott N. Schools, a general counsel in the Justice Department, will fill the interim role in the Northern District, in San Francisco.

    Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, said in a statement on the Senate floor Thursday that Ms. Lam had been dismissed despite a strong record of prosecutions.

    "Ms. Lam has had a distinguished career, and she served the southern district of San Diego well and everyone in that district knows that," Ms. Feinstein said. "I regret that main Justice does not. I am quite disappointed that main Justice chose to remove her, especially given the ongoing work in which the office is involved."

 

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    Senators Oppose Policy on US Attorneys
    The Associated Press

    Thursday 15 February 2007

    Washington - Congressional Democrats and some Republicans are trying to change part of the USA Patriot Act that allows the Bush administration to fire and replace federal prosecutors indefinitely without Senate confirmation.

    Freshly briefed by the Justice Department on the forced resignations of some of the seven U.S. attorneys since the act took effect, Senate Democrats planned to bring a bill to the floor Thursday that would impose a 120-day deadline on the amount of time a replacement could serve without Senate confirmation.

    After that, an interim replacement would be named by a U.S. District Court, a policy Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and some Republicans say could lead to the appointments of prosecutors for reasons other than their qualifications.

    Democrats say that's just the problem with the policy under the terror-fighting law that went into effect in March.

    Since then, seven U.S. attorneys have been fired, some without cause, Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty told the Senate Judiciary Committee. Democrats contend that prosecutors were forced to resign to make way for Republican political allies, and that the White House slipped the provision into the Patriot Act to permit such indefinite appointments.

    Congress passed the reauthorization with overwhelming bipartisan support, but many lawmakers say they were unaware of the provision. The president appoints federal prosecutors, who are subject to Senate confirmation.

    Gonzales has said he intends to submit every newly appointed interim prosecutor to the Senate confirmation process and denied that his choices were politically motivated. He also has pointed out that U.S. attorneys serve at the president's pleasure and can be fired for any reason or no reason at all.

    Nonetheless, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada is expected to try to bring the bill up for a vote Thursday, which also is the last day on the job of one of the fired prosecutors, Carol Lam of San Diego.

    Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., said last week he would try to block the bill unless Reid agreed to strip out the appointment power of the U.S. District Court.

    McNulty briefed senators behind closed doors Wednesday night on the cases of the seven fired prosecutors. Attending the meeting were Republicans Kyl and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Democrats Chuck Schumer of New York, Dianne Feinstein of California and Patty Murray of Washington.

    Afterward, Murray said she heard nothing to suggest that the U.S. attorney in her state, John McKay, deserved to be fired. She and other participants refused to comment further.

    Earlier this month, McNulty told the committee that most of the seven had been fired for "performance-related" reasons, and that one in Arkansas, Bud Cummins, had been cleared out to make way for a former aide to White House adviser Karl Rove.

    However, McKay and others had received glowing performance reviews and were not told of performance issues before they were fired, prompting further investigation by the committee.